Palermo Privata

It sits on the north shore of Sicily on a fan-shaped stretch of land between two towering stone promontories, and it’s been there, in one form or another, for almost 3,000 years. Empire after empire has trodden upon the place: Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans; then Vandals, Normans, Moors, Spaniards; then Italians, the United States Army; and since the end of World War II, Cosa Nostra, whose influence over the place is only recently waning. For millennia it’s been built up and knocked down, robbed and bombed, patched up and left to fend for itself. So it is a spectral city, a city of ghosts and ruins, amid which the living citizens slip quietly and for the most part without expression; an inward city, not unkind but very private — Italia insulare, as they call it. Palermo can be very beautiful, in a decaying, Hubert Robert way; on sunny days the sky overhead is Mediterranean enamel blue; the food is wondrous. But above all, Palermo is full of secrets and very strange.

Even notional comparisons are hard to come by and incomplete. Like Naples, Palermo is famous for its depredations, its crime and its unemployment; but Naples is far busier and more worldly. Like Havana, Palermo has the faint, heady air of isolation and rotting elegance. But Havana is wide open, a city seemingly without interiors, whereas Palermo is nothing but: for all its markets and sidewalk restaurants, it feels as if most of life takes place indoors, behind curtains.

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